The Trashalanche Pokemon Podcast

Crushing Hartford w Lugia and Gardevoir, Cups w Mew & more!

May 23, 2023 Brent Halliburton Season 1 Episode 134
The Trashalanche Pokemon Podcast
Crushing Hartford w Lugia and Gardevoir, Cups w Mew & more!
Transcript
Brent:

Let's get right into it. Welcome to the Trashalanche. Attendance is 166%. Mike Fouchet, Brit Pybas, Brent Halliburton, Liam Halliburton, Caden Hyatt, the whole gang is here. Uh, we're all on Twitter also, if you wanna go find us there. Uh, we have not gotten a five star review update this week. Uh, you guys could be like all of our favorite Australians and leaving five star reviews, but you're not. Uh, if you do, we will read it on the pod, and that is amazing. Dragon Shield continues to send us some sleeves. I

Liam:

think they're gonna send us some more. So we'll definitely be sleeping up Dragon Shields for NAIC.

Brent:

Uh, and that's gonna be pretty hype.

Liam:

Um,

Brent:

guys, amazing, amazing episode, particularly because we have Caden and Mike and Liam, all of whom are people who have played Pokegear since the last time they were on the pod. Congratulations, Mike, on the deep run. That's good stuff. But I feel like we should start with, Caden, you did a bunch of cups, do you want to, do you wanna just bring up, up to speed on how your, your invite, uh, work is going?

Kaden:

I competed in two cups this weekend on Hartford weekend. Um, I went down to la uh, to, to do a back-to-back cup. Saturday. Sunday, um, Saturday. I Saturday I got top a, I played Mew at both tournaments largely because, um, I thought both tournaments were gonna be best of one Swiss. And I think Mew is very solid in a best of one format. Um, and I kind of just, so, I kind of wanted to maximize for consistency and, um, I felt pretty confident in my ability to play Mew and the bi. The biggest struggle for Mew is if you run into any like, Quite good lost box players and I didn't anticipate there being like maybe there would be one. Okay. Lost box player, but not nothing insane, um, in la so I wasn't too worried about that. So that's kind of why I picked Mew. Um, so Saturday, uh, it ended up being best of three Swiss, which I was not anticipating made for a much longer day than I thought. Um, this was Cups suck. Yeah, it was pretty bad. It was six rounds, best of three into, into top eight. And, um, I played Mew. Uh, as for my necklace, I, I'm personally a huge fan of Avery. Um, I think Avery is really, really strong in Mew. I, and it ended up being vital. I played against, um, two Mew mirrors, which Avery basically won me both of those games, uh, both those matches. And it's also very oppressive for against Guardi, uh, which I also hit one of. So Avery ended up being M V P. I also threw in a fan of waves. I had the fan of waves, didn't hit any Lugia, so, uh, didn't use that card a single time throughout Saturday. Uh, I went, so I I, for my tournament run, um, I started out, I lost my first round, um, against Adon largely because, uh, I lost the flip. And then on the Roxanne turn the on, hit the absolute nuts as the matchup goes, um, which gave him game one. And then, um, game

Mike:

three,

Kaden:

it's maron is actually pre a pretty hard matchup if, uh, they don't break a turn and go first. So that's, that's kind of what happened. Game three. Um, and then I won my next four games or my next four matches. Um, I played against two Mew mirrors, like I said. Then I played against a lawsuit box ninja, which the matchup is quite close, especially if the player isn't too good at lost box, they can oftentimes just lose to themselves in mismanaging resources, which is largely what happened in that matchup. Um, then I hit my brother who gave me the game, um, in order for me to be able to, uh, ID my last round and make it into top eight. Um, in top eight, I hit lost Ard. Which was, is an interesting matchup. Um, I, I ended up losing game one largely. I was one turn behind cuz I lost the flip. Um, and, and so he was able to get one turn ahead and this, the lawsuit, inbox player, ARD player, um, I don't know if you all, you all probably know him, Aaron Friedman. Um, he, he is a good, he's a good, he's a good player. He's not gonna massively screw up lawsuit box and throw the game. Um, so he was able to sort of push his lead and, and kind of dominate. So I lost, I lost both games in top eight, but I got a top eight finish, 25 points or whatever, um, which I'll take Sunday. Came back for another League Cup. Also playing mute once again. This time I ran a squ. It just for the heck of it, I had heard some people talking about it and felt like I wanted to give it a try. Um, Skove ended up being okay, not fantastic. I would probably run a third four seal stone over the skove, but uh, it wasn't horrible at all. And this, this tournament was a little, a little more Unformer unfortunate. Um, round two, after winning my first round, I hit a dark fry and prized three muv, um, which basically gave me no chance of winning that that round. This one was also best of one, so, so I kind of just auto lost in round two, um, which set me on the back foot so that when, uh, later on in the tournament, I, you know, played a game against loss in Box Ninja and had a sort of slow start. They hit what they need to hit. I got my second loss and finished four two. Um, so not able to make cut and yeah, that was sort of my weekend. All in all. Mew is very strong. I wasn't running the Fusion Mew or anything. It was just e t e and I am uncertain about Fusion Mew to be quite honest. But, but I'm happy we can discuss that later. But yeah, so decent weekend I did in the Sunday Cup, I randomly won the raffle. They had like a, a raffle going on and you know, they picked two random players at the tournament to win the raffle. I was one of the two and as the prize, they had the choice between a S Laparre Champion League Cup, Matt, from a while back and the celebrations Ultra Premium collection. And I was choosing second because that they just randomly flipped a coin for who chose first and the other person picked the Lappers mat. So I got the celebrations Ultra premium collection, which is apparently worth like four,$500, which is kind of mind blowing. I did not realize that when I first. When I first got it, it was only upon looking up the price later on a whim that I realized how much it was actually worth. So, yeah, boy, that I was a pretty

Liam:

good, pretty good weekend. That other guy. Geez, I, it

Brent:

is, it is funny that you're like, I'm gonna go down to LA and I probably won't run into anybody playing dark box or a de dark

Liam:

text.

Kaden:

That'll, that'll be fine. Like, I mean, I did not, I did not expect to hit a dark eye. It was very unfortunate. And, and you know what's funny? Uh, Israel Soso was at that cup, and it wasn't even him. It wasn't him who was running. It was, it was just someone, Fran,

Liam:

I don't know.

Brent:

People being brought up in the ways of soso there. Yeah. Um, and, and you're not going to Milwaukee because you're graduating from

Kaden:

high school. This is true graduation, um, Milwaukee weekend, but I will be going to Fresno and NAIC, which are my two majors remaining.

Brent:

And, uh, and you are, I, I guess like one half of the pod that I was able to successfully get in NAIC?

Kaden:

Yes, I was, I'd managed to get in Wave one luckily. Um, but yeah.

Mike:

What a mess. Yeah, I'm sure we'll talk more about that.

Liam:

Um, alright, uh,

Brent:

uh, Mike, why don't we, why don't we do you next? Cause I'm sure that you're, that's what the people are waiting for. Talk to us about

Mike:

your Hartford Run, man. All right. Uh, yeah, I decided to play Lugia. Uh, I was kind of set on it, but was open to changing before the event, but I was pretty happy to, to, to just stick with Lugia. Nothing else jumped out at me. I changed two cards from Reagan's list. I played the Impact Energy over the third, earn a Vitality, which, you know, a lot of people have done that. I wasn't feeling strongly about that change, but overall I'm pretty happy with that. And then I dropped one Nest Ball for Thornton. So I played Penny and Thornton in the deck, which is a little greedy, but, um, felt like it might catch people off guard. Maybe if I discard one early, then they won't play around it, and then I can get'em with the second one. Uh, in practice, Thornton was almost completely useless. Uh, penny was pretty good overall. Um, but Thorton was pretty bad, but I don't really know what I would wanna play over it. Like nest Ball is not great. You could play a great ball, I suppose. Um, but overall, Reagan's list is great. Reagan played the exact same list from Portland, made it, uh, top four. I think Grant played that exact list as well to, to finals. I'm pr I don't think he changed anything either. So Reagan's list just really good. Um, So I started the tournament six one. Uh, the only loss that I had was to Arceus Tina, where I misplayed. Um, he played Radiant Gardevoir, which just messes up the math a little bit. But like I, I, I misplayed in the game and in one of the games at least. And then the other game I just drew kind of poorly. Um, nothing like super interesting in those first seven rounds. Um, some of my opponents definitely made mistakes, uh, against me in those rounds, which made my life easier. Uh, so six one going into the last two rounds, round eight, I get paired against Isaiah Williams with, uh, the Calo Box that Isol and Grant played. And we talked about playing, and then Isaiah's like, well, you know, if you're playing Luie, I'll, I'll Id with you. And, uh, so I thought about it for a minute. And I decided to, ID guarantee the day two and be able to play the last round. Um, I think both of our groups of friends both thought that that was a, a bad, uh, a stupid idea. Uh, Liam and Jeremy were both, uh, disappointed in me and, uh, likewise Caleb and Azul were disappointed in Isaiah. Um, But whatever it, it is what it is. Uh, is Isaiah

Brit:

like a similar points situation to you? Cause I feel like you did the right thing. I feel like if you're playing for worlds like you did, I would've. Oh, no,

Liam:

no. What? Tell just by how, like, I, I didn't know this. You could tell by how Isaiah approached the conversation. He was like, please, I don't want to hit Lugia

Brit:

up. Please. Id with me. I'm at your mercy right now. This is not

Liam:

Arceus. It's a horrible matchup. Please don't do this. It's not

Mike:

that bad for him. Man. Caleb went like five and Oh dude, he would like,

Liam:

if you're playing Lugia, I don't want to play against you.

Mike:

That's Id, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, Isaiah went one, he told me he was one, one against in the tournament. Caleb was four. And Oh, at that point, like it's, it's not a terrible matchup for them. It's Lugia.

Liam:

It's

Brit:

definitely, you see the final, did you watch

Liam:

the

Mike:

Yeah. Right, right, right. Exactly. Lugia can, it's Lugia. But, but, and Britt's also, right? Like, um, Like guaranteeing like 50 or 60 points. Well, I'll get into that in a little bit too, but that is part of what, uh, influenced my decision as well, making sure that I got at least 50 points from the event.

Liam:

Like 90% of players will Id with you round

Mike:

nine. Like Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. But like my round nine appointment is someone that's gonna be much worse than Isaiah Williams. And so like I would rather take the idea against Isaiah and then play my Round nine opponent.

Brit:

Right. It's a freebie into the, into round nine, two, whatever happens, you're, you're still kind of ahead of the field. Whereas if you, if you play it and lose and have to take the ID the next round or something, then it's just like, well, then you should probably play it out or something. Cause you're, you're in a situation where, Points are slipping away. You know, you only have one or two losses going into day two at 19 points where you're just completely out of points. It just, it's totally different. Like, and just the way that Id, or just the way that ties natural and unnatural, just like, just really always, so depends on when they happen and what ac what they actually mean is just so variable for like, you know, tying round one versus tying round eight, like contextually means very different things and so on. But I don't think you did anything wrong because you weren't playing to win. And so I feel like you're just like, these two conversations are at, you know, talking over each other. Cause you're not, you sort of like, you're opting out of the, like win the event conversation. So whether you play round nine or not, like, doesn't matter as much in this scenario. We're playing for something else. It just seems like the, the safe bet for sure. He woke

Liam:

up the next morning saying, I pray I can hit more lost spots.

Mike:

Liam's like you did and you tied, uh, anyway, okay. And then round nine I played against that.

Brent:

One thing I wanna add to that conversation, my understanding is at day two, Isaiah goes, oh, one, one drop.

Liam:

Yeah,

Mike:

yeah, yeah. Something like that.

Brent:

I salute that in, in the grand tradition of Liam complaining that you like, gotta try and win tournaments. The second Isaiah was like, I've not winning this tournament. He's like, ah, that's great. I can take the day off.

Liam:

I, I really feel that one. Cause like, you know, even the people, like after you use your like first two rounds, first three rounds, day two, they're still gonna be really good because they like, they're bass record 6 21. Right? Right. They made, they're all, every round is hard. Every round is hard. And like, you know, when you, when you lose your first two rounds and you're like, well maybe if I win every single game against day two players, I can't hit top 64 like you do yourself. Yeah. Yeah. So pro

Brent:

props to Isaiah

Liam:

for making the bold decision to like get an entire day back early. Yeah, that's

Mike:

a strong move. So then I'm six 11, I play around nine. I play against Mirror and like we play three games in like 15 minutes. Uh, and, and I lose, like it's just, I hes eye brick, like that was it. Uh, so I ended up 6 2, 1 going in day two. Um, day two I ended up going 3, 2, 1, and ended up in top 64. Uh, I want to give a couple highlights. Uh, first round I played against, uh, I don't have their name right now, but awesome person. Um, he was playing Lost Box. We split the first two games and then game three, we had like five minutes left. And we're both playing really fast. We get to the end of the plus three and we had, we had said at the beginning of game three, Or I said to them like, do you want to make an agreement? And they're like, can we just analyze the board state? And we were kinda like having really good conversation the whole time throughout the game. And I think we like just trusted each other and it worked out really well. Like we, we had the plus three. We both laid out at our hands. We talked through like what was probably gonna happen over the next couple turns. Um, and that's a matchup, Lugia, ver lost box where I think it's a little bit easier to do that because, um, like disruption can hurt them. But like, if you're able, I like, it was pretty obvious that I was going to probably win even without disrupting their hand. And so it was like pretty easy just to like map out the prizes. Um, and at the end of the conversation they, they were just like, yep, you got it. Take the win. Um, so, uh, big props to them for, for doing that. Um, so that was cool. Uh, round, oh, and shout out to, there was a judge like standing there the whole time and they let us talk it out. So that was, uh, also really cool too. Um, round two I played against Christian Ortiz, uh, long time person or person that I've known for a really, really long time. We played for the first time, almost 20 years ago. Uh, he was playing the Gardevoir water deck, like Kyo, Articuno, Palkia. Um, so that was cool and, and I beat him. Um, but we had, we had some good games and then I lost the next two rounds. Uh, a little bit unlucky, a little like maybe one mistake. Uh, I, I lost to Audra where I prized the Urshifu and one game, and then I prized like a bunch of single strike energy the other game. But I made a mistake, one of those games, and then I lost to a fusion view where like all three games I drew really, really, really bad. I think Liam watched that game. My opponent was also not, uh, I, I don't wanna say he wasn't the greatest, but he definitely made like a handful of mistakes. And so that game was a little bit frustrating to lose cause I was drawing so terribly. Uh, and then I won round five, uh, against the mirror where I just drew better. And then the last round I played against Giratina. So, uh, going into that round, if we tie, we're both guaranteed top 64, if there's a winner, the winner makes top 32 and the loser makes top

Liam:

1 28. I,

Brent:

you know, I saw that and, and my immediate reaction was I didn't get the chance to talk to Mike, but I wonder if he I'D

Mike:

that right. So we did not Id, um, I won the first game, uh, then I lost the second game and we played the third game and it ended up naturally tying, um, which I was. Okay with, I was almost certainly gonna lose the game three, like, almost certainly, but I felt a little, so I felt a little bad, but I also felt okay because both game two and game three, I had a Meza goza flip that decided pretty much decided the game. So like, if I hit heads, I win the game. It, it was like if I hit heads, I get two Archeops. If I get tails, I get one Archeops. And that's like a pretty big deal in that matchup in particular. Uh, so I felt like if it, if it had to happen, if, if that situation had happened, only one of the games, I would've felt worse. But the fact that it happened both games in a row and I lost it both times, made me kind of okay, taking the tie. Um, So ended up top 64 50 points and if I got into NAIC slash if I do get into NAIC, this puts me in a good spot to just get, uh, the invite off NAIC. Um, which is kind of was my plan like, you know, a month ago was to try and get 50 points here, go win one cup and then uh, get like top 2 56 or maybe even five 12, uh, at any I c Um, so fingers crossed that something happens and I'm able to play in that tournament. Uh, yeah, so that was my Hartford Run.

Brent:

Are there still tickets available for Milwaukee?

Mike:

Yeah, but like it's, that's like so much less reasonable, right? Like you need, I need basically a hundred points, right? Right. Or 80 points. 80 points is what I need. 2 56 is 80 points. 80 points at a regional is top 16. Like,

Brent:

yeah, yeah. Do that. I, I seize, man. It's just cheese and points.

Mike:

Yeah. That's so,

Liam:

yep. Um,

Brent:

would you, I assume you were super happy with your deck choice?

Mike:

Yeah. I mean, you know, it, it got top, it got second and top four. I think Lugia was, uh, pretty good choice for the event. I didn't, haven't seen the meta breakdown. I don't know if that was ever published anywhere. Um, I don't think so, but I assume Lugia was probably the second most played deck. Um, but it didn't seem like as big as I thought, if that makes sense. Um, Like it was definitely popular, but, uh, yeah, I dunno. I, I, I was happy with the choice. Um, there's not too much like innovation you can do with Lugia, but, um, one of the nice things about playing it is that I only went to time, like couple rounds and so it's a not a super exhausting deck to play. And like coming out of this is the first regional that I've played this year where that I made day two at where I wasn't completely drained by the end of the event. And that is a part of it probably also has to do with being noble to drive there. But I drove to Baltimore and I played radiant art there, and that deck is much more, uh, mentally draining. So that was, that aspect of it was quite nice.

Uh,

Brent:

um, when you talk about playing the mirror, is there any nuance to playing the mirror?

Mike:

Um, I mean, most of the games were not really interactive. The, I had one game in the mirror when, um, I was behind, but I used Ugia to Boss Kon and then Boss KO is second Lumion, and he wasn't able to like, one shot the Lugia. So even though I was behind, I was able to catch back up and then finish the game with, uh, Tyranitar. Um, that was kind of like the only interesting game that I played in the Mirror. Basically every other mirror was just decided by one person, bricking. So

Liam:

I don't, I

Brent:

like, obviously when you say it's like much easier to play than, than Last Box are. From a like time perspective, you, you're just like, I'm bringing these big Pokegear, I'm smashing your big Pokegear. Yeah. Who get smashed

Mike:

first? Like, I think like if both players set up there could like the Urshifu like. Is interesting in the mirror. It never came up in any of the games that I played, but I could see it, you know, having an interesting dynamic in the game because it's something that is impossible to one shot and it can one shot anything. But if you one shot something, then you're forced into having the earn a vitality to be able to attack again the next turn. So it's a little bit of a high risk, high reward play.

Brent:

Li wanna

Liam:

talk about your run? Uh, sure. Um, I've played Guardi, uh, it was pretty similar to towards Liz. Maybe just a few cards off. Uh, I can't remember the exact changes. I cut the penny for a Serena and, uh, I, I, I have four research. I played the Serena and I played four fog crystal along with 12 energy. Um, super duper consistent list. I, I really enjoyed playing it. I. The, the deck was amazing. It, like, you, you just fly through your deck so fast. Um, I, I haven't played with an engine like quite like it before. Um, so yeah, the, the, the deck was super strong. Um, round by round. I guess my first two rounds I hit m the first was DT Mew. The second was a fusion meal. Uh, the DTM matchup went kind of how you expected, like, I just like, got energy, um, and like, uh, at the important moments, uh, I was able to hit the Skye and like, you know, if you hit your attackers, you can just out trade them. Um, I, I, I had the worker which opened those matchups along with the two stadium. Um, the fusion Mew was a little bit harder. Um, uh, but they missed a, like a boss stall for game because I'd committed 11 energy to, uh, to my board, um, to Kirlia KO, uh, melot on the bench, which almost certainly was incorrect. Um, But yeah, and then they missed a boss stall for the Kirlia. I would've decked out first. Um, so I was able to win. But I was telling Jeremy after the match, I was like, man, that's usually me match that hard. Cuz they, they have the one prize, so they throw off the sky seal, um, or like the, like winning two turns plan. Um, and it was like, oh, don't worry, you, you won't see it anymore. Um, I lost to it when I was riding the bubble spoilers, I guess. And yeah, it won, uh, both events. Um, so yeah, uh, pretty good actually. Uh, round three I hit Lugia and the first two games went like, Yeah, I mean, go Guardian. I think it has good matchups. It's not really affected much by going first or second. Like when you say like, games go, like how you'd expect, it's, it's a combo oriented deck, right? Like you just have to hit like a certain combo by, um, some prize, usually four prizes, maybe three prizes with some matchups. Um, or by the time your opponent reaches those, uh, which is like nine energy and discard station, Skye, maybe boss sometimes or something. Um, and then you're able to just like clean up the game from there, like all your attackers are. You, you literally just need the Pokegear and then you just grab your discard and like throw it on the board. Um, So like I was able to hit the combo some games, um, and then I wasn't others. We went one, one and then game two I opened really, really strong except I, I started the station and, or game game three. This is, this was game three. And I was playing really fast because, um, it, it was game three. I was playing Guardi, uh, I was playing like 15 search cards every turn. Um, and so, so I was playing really quickly and I didn't check my prizes, but I ended uprising both Zacian and the Miriam. So I had like winning chances if I was able to go Zacian Skye at the end. Cause we, we got to time, I had five prizes and the Luie had three. If I was able to go like, Zacian Skye, that turn, I could finish with the Arceus guard. I think I, there, there, there was some, I think I lost the Arceus guard early, uh, to like a research or something. So I wanted to go Zacian Skye. And then I like looked through my deck and I prized book the Miriam and the, uh, the second. So I just, Didn't bench any of these and pass, pass, pass. And we, we tied that game. Um, the next two rounds I hit Arceus de Abri, so I was 2 0 1 at that point, the first one I beat. Um, yeah, there, there was no, like, there was nothing too tricky. The matchup just went well, right? Like they, they evolved the obrien at some point and I was able to take four prizes, um, in the games I won. And yeah, the, the matchup went well. The, the one I lost to though that was around five. I, I, I made a lot of little mistakes in that game. The, the RCS star on RD deck is like, it's really, I think it's more difficult to play against than it actually is strong because of all the options that it has. Um, and like all the different threats that you have to keep in your head. And I, I hadn't played the matchup before. Um, so, so it's, it is really difficult to keep track of all the different threats, right? Like they have the Karens, they have the Alex exam, they have the Hoocha, um, they have mean, look, they have like all this different stuff that they can do. Um, and like they, they can also use it and like, A real variety of ways. And I think the first game I was just like a little bit behind, um, and ended up losing the second game I lost as well. I I was going to be able to win because I got to a situation where, um, I was going, uh, I, I had already taken a KO, so I had I think three prizes cuz I sky sealed, but it wasn't really relevant. Um, and then, uh, and my opponent had two prizes and I was able to power up the con guard and I was gonna swing for two prizes and then collapse the way my guardian EX. So my opponent couldn't take two, but I put one 20 on the Arceus con guard because I wanted, I wanted to like power it up just, uh, so that if my opponent, like maybe I think Gus KO, the Kirlia I had on the bench, I wouldn't need, uh, I, I didn't need the ability to power it up and take another knockout. Um, but I, I think I had a route and I just needed to play for, for the candy guard because obviously when I put one 20 on it, I left myself open to the Kazak. I thought about the Kazak, but I didn't realize. Um, I, I thought it would only be able to move one to the active guardian, but I wasn't considering the boss. Then you're able to put the 10, uh, one set of, uh, damage counters from the Huish on the Guardian, 10 damages on the Guardian 10 somewhere else, and then Za to the Guardian, then take two prizes. So I, yeah, I just made a mistake, um, and I lost that game. Uh, so I was three 11 at that point. And then I, um, I parents Azul, who was playing lost Fox Kyo and I, I threw Game one as well, game two. He, he just kind of had, um, he, he was going fast and like I, I mis turned to attack, but game one, I hit turn to attack and I was able to like, kind of stay ahead the whole game. He ended up dragonite the Guardian EX and I was able to get to a turn at the end where again, I was gonna be able to collapse the way the Guardian EX. Um, And lock him out. Uh, lock him outta the game. Cause he was trying, he was playing to be able to take three prizes next turn with Sableye to finish off the guard EX and take another, uh, on my damaged dark con guard. Um, but I was gonna be able to collapse it away and lock him outta the game. But I ended up refinement, using refinement on a v i p pass that turn instead of like an energy. So I wasn't able to pre power up another attacker by the end of the turn. Um, and yeah, so I, I just like, walked myself out of the game, uh, which was real unfortunate. So, yeah. And then at that point I was 3, 2, 1, I hit a fusion meal and I like, I just like, kinda like missed pieces to the combo a little bit. I, there, there, there was a funny story in that game where I opened really strong in one of the games. I had like four rounds, gr ninja turn one, and the last part in my hand was a research. And, and I was like, oh man, I'm chilling. And then I, I topped like the sky seal. So I, uh, I, I attached it to Greninja to like bluff the penny for the Sky seal. But yeah, the Sky Seal's gone. Um, and then I, I lost the turn a little bit later, um, uh, due to like missing an energy or something and I wasn't able to get the, I, I lost the turn and I lost my mechanism for making it back up. I also got hit with like a sick, um, echoing horn play at the end. I, like, I knew it was possible, but yeah, he, he, he was just sitting on everything and had them like two seconds. He was like lost vacuum away. That collapsed to create the bench space. I had to collapse the way the be. That's why I was there. And I didn't just fill my bench. Um, so I collapsed the way the b he lost vacuums at echoing Horn. D t e Boss. Uh, it, it was just like all in his hand. It was like fusion meal. Um, so that was pretty sick to watch. I like, you know, I'd never seen any of, any of those pieces, um, in the games prior, just sitting on all of them. Um, So that was a sick play. And that was basically the end of my tournament. I played out the, the next few games, but, uh, I mean, I was 3 31 at that point, so they weren't very good. Yeah.

Brent:

Uh, you know, and I, I think the, the thing that he, uh, uh, Liam doesn't say that like, as somebody who was not at the tournament and was just like watching the standings, uh, roll by in RQ nine, that, that he like OITs his, I mean, the tie was Ray. Yeah. And I was like, Liam, I don't know if you know who that guy is, but like he's pretty good at Pokegear. Yeah. And, and he's very good at Hearthstone if you need Hearthstone advice. And then, uh, and then, so that was his tie. And then he loses to Riley McKay, who's very good, and then loses to Azul. And then the last guy was Mike Newey.

Liam:

Like, oh, that's a tournament.

Brent:

That's like a, that's a super tough, like four round draw there.

Brit:

Yeah. All those players are incredible. I mean, like Mike, Mike Newey is the name that people probably have already forgotten at this point. He won regionals and like, very good, very, very awesome guy. Always, always a treat to play against him if you ever have Very nice. Um, but yeah, it's, it's, it's a stacked tournament for sure. Yeah, it was, it was cool to see Ray Ray tied his winning in, uh, to Reagan, I think, or no, he lost, he lost to Reagan on the Winnin. Yeah. And it's just like, I don't know, Ray is just so good at these games. I don't, I don't know just how he is, just got such a natural knack for it. I feel like he's such a good story. Just all his stuff and like, I dunno if either of you know this, but he like met Ryan Kibbler, like playing magic, like as a kid and like that's part of his story too.

Mike:

Um, yeah. They lived right next to each other.

Brit:

Right, right. I don't know who that is. Uh, just magic Pro Hearthstone streamer card game streamer now. Okay. But just Magic Hall of Famer who, who, who became a Hearthstone streamer. Mm-hmm.

Brent:

Yeah. Uh, yeah, that's a, that's a super tough draw, right? I was like, uh, all those are okay. Sucks. Like, you know, I recognize that the distinction between, uh, Liam's run in Arlington and this one was like, man, he just drew everybody day one. It's like, okay. That's

Mike:

fine. What was your record at the end? Uh, Liam, it was 5 3 1. Okay. I'm looking for you on, I wanna like pull this up. He was a hundred ninety nine hundred ninety nine. Okay. Oh yeah. Look at that. Jack Carter also like good player too. Yeah. Dang.

Brent:

Yeah. Yeah, that's, that's,

Mike:

I he played newly right after Azul.

Brent:

Okay. Yeah. That's a, that's a super rough draw. Right? That's funny. I like when, when he was playing Azul and he was like, uh, I was like, okay, that's not good. And then he draws NOI and I was like, good tournament. So how did you guys, I mean, I know for listeners to the pod, Liam drove up with Mike to the tournament and I did not go this time as stunning tournament events for me. Um, how did you guys end up on different decks, even though you guys were in the car together for several hours?

Mike:

Well, I just kept telling Liam that I was gonna probably play Lugia, and then Liam described all the different types of things that he would wanna see in a deck. And I was like, well, you're kind of describing Lugia right now, Liam. And, uh, then he is like, no, no, no, no, no, I'm not playing that. And uh, so Liam had no backup deck until what? Midnight? The,

Liam:

yeah, the deck was surprisingly good. I, it was like a pretty awful medic, like I would've said it was an awful meta call like a few hours before. Um, and I wasn't really thinking, uh, at midnight when I was choosing my deck. Um, but yeah, the, the deck was just like really, really good. And like, even if it's like a bad meta call, the deck just being good, I think like just has a lot of value. Um, playing good decks is like amazing. Well, that, that is a lot coming from Liam

Brent:

there guys. Yeah. Mm-hmm. It turn turns out that like the top medex are super good and if you play one, you will like beat people.

Brit:

Yeah. I feel like, I feel like this has happened a few times with Liam that he is in the lab, he's in the labs for weeks with all these like, various decks and then he just like realizes that the top decks are, have been good the whole time and just like, I feel like he's reached this conclusion like one time, one other time before and it's just like, yeah, the Palkia Palkia is a good deck. You don't have to play, uh, red or not red Drago, uh, whatever that card is. The fossil guy Boltund,

Mike:

it took me so

Kaden:

long to convince Liam to play Palkia like weeks, weeks of, of grinding it. It took us so

Liam:

long. But

Brit:

yeah, that two, two rcs Luxray deck though,

Liam:

that was the one.

Brent:

Yeah. Yeah. Well, and, and, and that's what led to him playing Luie at Arlington was he was like, I want a deck where when they miss a beat, I punish them. And then last night he gets home and what he says to me is, he's like, it, it is so good to be able to like, like just push people so hard. And I was like, that's exactly the same thing you said right before Arlington, when you played Lucia. You should play good decks. We'll, we'll see, we'll see how Milwaukee goes. But that's

Liam:

Liam.

Kaden:

Liam, you should, you should commit to playing a meed at Milwaukee.

Liam:

I, I, I, I think I told Mike this. I, I've been saying though, I, I think like the biggest takeaway for me is that like the decks you build have to be streamlined. Like they, yeah. They, I mean, J Jerry was saying this a few months ago. They have to have a really strong core, but I, I think like, like streamlined is like the best word to describe it, right? Like, guard's playing like 16, 16 ball cars and just like, Goes through its deck like super duper fast. And like that level of consistency, which I think was both present and Lugia at Arlington and Palkia Worlds and like, um, and in Guardia at this tournament is, is something that I think, um, I will, I'll chase more in the future. And it's like only enabled by not playing like this, like really weird box of texts that don't have like synergy with each other. Um, or, but yeah, avoiding playing that. Yeah, that's what you wanna do. Um, and instead you just wanna play like really strong core that takes a lot of good match ups, maybe one or two tech cards. Right. When, when you, when you say,

Brent:

I'm, I'm gonna build a control box list, and you have like a thing for everything, then you have to find that thing every time and like consistently executing the strategy is hard. Yeah. Like a little bit.

Liam:

Um, because like there, there are decks like that, that wall deck that was playing like the hoop, uh, the GIAs the whale award or whatever from a, a while back that like, I mean, I don't actually think that was ever very good, but like, stuff like that, like works because like, you know, you're still committing a very large, like, majority of your deck to just like making the deck function. Right. And like a singular strategy. Um, and like all these extra walls, like they're both, they're good cards to draw and turn one, right. Um, so, uh, yeah, like I j just not having like dead cards, you know, that's what I'll say. Um, you know, the Mike Fouchet play the

Brent:

good cards, not the bad cards. Yeah. There you go.

Liam:

There you go. People that is, that is the Strat.

Mike:

I'll say, I will say Saturday going into Sunday, Liam spent, uh, he stayed up quite late making some deck. I didn't even look at it. It was late. It was laid out on the floor Sunday morning, but I, I refuse to look at it, Liam. So I don't know if it's any good.

Liam:

I don't know. I, I think it is, is, um, I will say I think like the, the brute force box, which is like kind of going against what I just said, um, isn't really bad right now because like, everything is just like begging, begging to be like answered, um, by like, you know, these cards that don't have a lot of synergy. Um, like Lugia, it's super vulnerable to right now Gardis, vulnerable to Umbrian. Um, and uh, yeah, like Lost Box doesn't have like a great attacker, especially Hisar version, which I think is like picking up, uh, in popularity against control. Like if you don't take any prizes, they're like, best attacker does 120 damage. Um, so like, you know, like there, there's all these like glaring weaknesses for decks that, you know, there's good, there's cards that answer, but, um, so it's interesting. But I, yeah, I do think I wanna buy something like super streamlined. Uh, and like in general, I think that will help me more than hinder my deck building. Even if I miss like, some box idea, I'll generally play play better decks or consistently better decks. They're better.

Brent:

Uh, so, so Mike Brit, you guys are not going to Milwaukee, right? You're not going Wait, so Caden, how close do, how close do an invite? Are you

Kaden:

I'm currently sitting at, I think 2 35. So right now I'm basically, I, and I don't have one placement at a challenge yet, so I win a challenge and then I need top 1 28. At NAIC. And then depending on how I do at Fresno, I'm looking to try to get that down to, to needing 2 56 or maybe five 12 instead.

Brent:

Yeah. And and did your brother pick up his invite this weekend?

Kaden:

Not quite yet. Um, my brother's close. He picked up a second place at a cup this weekend. Um, but it's probably also gonna come down to NAIC, NAIC, like, like many, many people this year it's gonna come down to NAIC.

Liam:

Yeah. Oh, you

Brent:

know, uh, uh, Walker has said he is gonna try to win NAIC so he can get an invite.

Liam:

He says it doesn't. All right. Walker's

gonna

Kaden:

be there. Uh, that's gonna be exciting. I, I hope he does. That would be, that would be fantastic. We'll have to get him on the pod in that case.

Mike:

I think he only needs a second actually to get an invite.

Brent:

He says Seniors seem bad, so it should be fine.

Liam:

I, I will say on the note of seniors, um, props to them for recognizing that huge was the move. Justin, New York got second with it. Um, you know, and like, uh, predicting the meta going with Fusion Mew, which is, um, you know, uh, I guess an insane meta read with a deck that wasn't really being considered prior to Hartford. Um, that's a good call. So, so

Brent:

somebody explained to me the

Liam:

fusion Mew thing. Uh, yeah, it's, it's basically, it's better's lu game is better's guardi because both and Lugia re revolve around like, taking, taking, um, for garia, taking two prizes on a key term for Lugia is taking three, right? So after that first knockout on a dmax, um, I mean, you, you can use, uh, what is it? Psychically to try and play around it. Luki, that's a little bit more difficult, guard's a little bit more realistic, but guard can also kind of force the VMax, um, by hitting with the Guardian EX, uh, regardless. Um, after you take that first VMax, Luki usually goes down to three prizes, guard goes down to two. And then what, what Fusion Mew has available that, um, what Fusion Mew is available that CMU doesn't, is at that moment they can send up a one prizer that's capable of taking a knockout and Roxanne path. Um, I don't, I don't know if other lists were playing Roxanne path, but that's what happened to me when Mike knew he did it. And I'm, you, you have to hit, um, boss Stadium bump when you're playing Guardy, um, and Boss when you're playing Arceus, which is, uh, without an engine. And for Guardy, uh, especially near the end game. Both of those are like super difficult. Um, uh, so yeah, it, it basically gets an extra resource that way. Um, Which swings both the, the Lugia and the Guardian matchups. It's, um, and you, you also get like a little bit of extra aggression, I think, which both helps the lost box matchup and, um, and Guardia a little bit, uh, because you can hit the term on tag going second. Yeah,

Brent:

yeah. Like turn, turn on Mewtwo on Lost Box. I'm sure they're just like, oh

Liam:

man. And I to like, you're also the path too. I think that matchup, uh, it, it also helps bump the Arceus matchup because like if you just like load fusion energy onto your muse and you're playing a path, like they can't stop you from just like rolling through their board with, um, Mew. So like, yeah, well positioned deck for this tournament. Um, definitely like, you know, you are playing a bunch of fusions and Arceus, so that's kind of ugly, but yeah, that

Brent:

I'm like, I'm like, ma'am, I have to be so good. Can't disagree with you. Put the bad

Liam:

cards in.

Mike:

Yeah, it definitely seemed really good against Arceus Arceus. Right. That was, that was the reason Arceus had to play all that dark stuff last year just to beat Mew, and now it's not playing those things. So, uh, definitely seemed really good into Arceus. Uh, both Rowan and the guy that won Malmo did play Roxanne and at least One Path. Yeah, makes sense.

Brit:

I mean, I've, I've thought it was, I don't think I've talked about it too much, but it's like, it's a very slept on deck. I feel like, like, it doesn't seem great. Like I, I don't think you can argue it past like tier two or something like that, but it's just like no one plays it, but like the arguments, there aren't really salient arguments for why it wouldn't be good. It's just like, is it, you know, inferior to, or at least consistency wise, inferior to. The double Turbo version, like yeah, generally, but people played weird jnk in the double Turbo version all the time too, like take the Maho and flying Pikachu at a couple tournaments here and there. So it's just like the power of mute just like, doesn't matter, you know? It's just so consistent and just kind of the inherent engine that you can play some bad cards and still just cram through them and draw through them and things like that. And I think, you know, just the most obvious thing too is just like outside of these scenarios that we've talked about, it's just like, it gives me a game. You know, it puts Mew in games when they go second and so often Mew just like, is just struggles and a lot of matchups when it can't start attacking, um, you know, before it's opponent. And this just like, you know, you don't always necessarily need the promised land or the meto, but having that option there is very good. And in some games it's, it's just a checkmate, you know, in certain matchups having that turn one Mewtwo atta knockout is just, it just wins you the game outright. Um, so it is strange. I think I just like the, the very coincidental that won both tournaments this weekend. I don't feel like it really. Becomes a better or worse deck going forward? I feel like it will, as I sort of expressed at the beginning of this, I think it will retain that position. Like I don't feel like decks really need to adjust. It's just be a matchup. They'll be more aware of, I don't feel like decks are going to make changes, especially like take LU gear or something like that where like it's a 59 58 card list, you know, for the most part right now. And like a, you know, I don't think that CH needs to change or anything, even if this matchup is, you know, different or worse than the other Mew and things like that. Um, but yeah, it's just like, it's, it's a deck. Just not enough people have played it until now. Like it's just always getting placings too. I think there was one in top 16 or top 32 of, of Oceania, um, which was that player. I, I just remember really liking his list and he was just, he was a Yugi player or something who was only played a couple of Pokegear tournaments and he had only played Fusion strike and he, his, his report is just like, I think this is still good. I'm the only one who plays it for some reason and just like, was it not a Pokegear player but a card game player who did well with it. And I just like, after losing that one tournament I played into just like a starter deck version of it. I'm just like, it's fine. It's clearly capable. Like, I don't know, having these other attackers seems interesting to me, at least as like a novel point of why I would play one over the other, like oxes and Melmetal. It just sounds like more fun, more, more lines and things like that, you know, with psychic leaps and just being a little bit di bit, little bit different in like the options that Mew has. Um, is it better or worse? Like, I still think the DT version is probably better overall, but like, I don't know. There's just merits to both now, I suppose.

Brent:

Yeah. Alright guys, so if you were going to Milwaukee, what's the play?

Kaden:

I dunno, I feel like, I feel like I would go, I personally would play, and this is largely cuz I just don't like playing Lost Box. I would, I'm never gonna play that deck. I would probably go Lugia or m um, one of the two. I think Gardis really strong, but I think it's, I don't, I don't even know. Um, I just really like how, sort of like what Liam was saying, especially, especially m is very streamlined. Um, that's sort of what makes it so appealing for me. And I think Lugia is just a really strong deck and it's, I mean, it's proven itself. So yeah, I think I would go Lugia or Mew. Not sure if I would do a fusion or dte,

Mike:

but I really, I'm, I'm interested in the Forest seal stone Gardevoir. Um, I haven't played too many games with that version, but we saw toward God top 16 in Malmo with it. The Schultz brothers both played presumably the same list. The highest place in Gardevoir in Hartford, um, was only top 32, but it also ran forest hillstone over the sky, seal stone. And there was the Forest Hillstone, uh, version that got top four at the Brazilian regionals, um, the same weekend as Portland a couple weeks ago. So that's kind of what I would be interested in testing. I don't know if that's what I would end up on, but seems not bad. Um, the guy that did get top 32 only played against. Two lost box. It seems there's a couple unknown decks that he played against, but he only played against two lost box, but they were both very good players. He beat Azul and lost to John Ang. So, um, maybe worth looking into Brent. How about you? I would still be on

Brit:

Arceus deck. I like, I just, I don't really, like, there's something about the, the Arceus Dion lists. I just don't like them for some reason. They just like, they just, they commit to, they commit to certain cards that just, like, I don't, like, I don't understand why that doesn't play bi and things like that. Like, there's just some like consistency decisions that something about. That mashup is just off-putting to me, like, I, I just feel like the lists should be much better than they are. And I mean, maybe I'm just being nitpicky. It's not like they're not getting results and things like that, but I just, I feel like Arceus something could be a much better list. But anyways, I think I would, I would play, try to look into that or just like, Giratina still, I feel like just after this weekend that like m is just like gonna creep up a little bit in popularity and like, as well as a decent percentage, not a lot, two, three, something like that. Maybe of, of fusion strike copycats. People that didn't play fusion strike before that are gonna give it a chance now. And hearing both of those things, assuming they're true or at least possibly true, like, ol sounds really good to me. Like you, you know, you get a Mew matchup where viol is suddenly much better. Viol is very strong against Lugia, and Viol is, it's, you can, it's fine against the DT Mew if they're. Um, not careful with their d d uh, dts. If they don't know you play a lot of times, you know, just to draw more cards. You, you've lost vacuum, you discard one to two energy of your four energy very consistently. So I feel like you could maybe steal a game there. That's, that's where my head is right now. I, I would try to find an Arceus deck that could successfully play, uh, celebrations and I don't, you know, I guess it's any of them. We just play one of that in, in like double Turbo. But like, that sounds really good to me. Um, with Aldon or with ION or something like that, like that just probably with Ion you, you keep ion for, uh, Gardevoir and just kind of do the other things. But, but this sounds good on, on paper to me. I don't know what I'm missing, but I like where I've gone with that.

Liam:

That, that was the list on the floor. Mike. It was, I could send you my version. It's got like way more control pieces cuz it's also, it's doing like some other weird stuff for lost. Um, but. Yeah, it's got Arceus. I'm Brian Yong.

Brit:

Look at me. Go.

Liam:

Um, uh, my play for Milwaukee would be probably guard again. I, I think Guardian would be Would you, would you change any cards? I would, um, I, I'd play the second iconic Guardy, um, and the, and the four seal, though. I, I like all those changes. Yeah. Um, yeah. I, I think guard's just good.

Brit:

Mm-hmm. I think there's definitely a scenario where Gardevoir isn't respected enough and it, it creeps, it creeps back up to the top, just depending on like, other shifts, like Sidra comes back again. You know, that's just a, that's a matchup that I think is just generally very good for Gardevoir and can clean up, you know, these other matchups depending on, um, you know, where they come out. Like, I don't think I, this is just sort of a bad example cause I don't think GRE's going to be well positioned for Milwaukee at all. Um, but just like, as an example of like a fringe deck that. Can't handle these other decks, but would like lose to Gardevoir, for example. Um, but yeah, I feel like Gardevoir is sort of like, other than tort, I don't feel like very many top players are, are, are high on it anymore. Um, and I still think it's a very, very, very strong deck. Um, that, you know, even though it didn't necessarily succeed this last weekend, um, I don't think that means it can't top eight this coming weekend or next weekend.

Brent:

So I recognize most of the reason that people kind of say they're down on Gardevoir is bad loss box matchup. I mean, you literally played Azul. Uh, how did you feel about the matchup

Liam:

afterwards? I, I thought it was fine. Um, in, in the game

Brit:

I hit candy, turn two and I was going first. I was like, wow,

Liam:

I can beat him.

Brit:

Yeah, I mean, I think that's right. Even, even if we accept the data and, you know, take it as an unfavorable, it's not that unfavorable. The good starts are, are are very strong and difficult for lost box to handle. And if you, if you

Liam:

sit there

Brent:

with a bunch of Kirlia is out, yeah, you're gonna get bodied up. But like you have to just like, if you understand how to play the match, there's probably things you could do.

Liam:

Right?

Mike:

Yeah. Yeah. And the forest hillstone, uh, in theory would enable the turn two Gardevoir much more consistently. And so, seems

Liam:

quite good there. And then, yeah. Uh, I thinks just like really good into everything else.

Brent:

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think the, the knock on Guardy is here. You're gonna lose the lost box and lost box a giant part of the meta and like, that's super bad. That's super bad. But if you were like, I played somebody who's I think people would say is very good lost box player and like it was okay. It makes it sound okay. Uh, guys, I don't have a good, would you rather question for this week, but, but I did wanna round the horn on the end of our last pod. I don't know if you guys got feedback on, I dunno if you got any feedback at Hartford Mike. I think. I had more anecdotal comments made to me over the last week about how much people loved our discussion of moral

Liam:

relativism.

Mike:

Oh boy.

Brent:

I mean, may, maybe it's just like my dad's sample size, but like people loved it. I dunno if you had heard that Brit, but I thought you should.

Liam:

I mean, I

Brit:

think I'm partially responsible. I just can't imagine Sort of surprised, I assume people hate to hear that when I talk about that stuff.

Brent:

No, people loved it. People ate it up.

Mike:

I have, I guess, a

Brit:

question. It won't be quite as like around the horn, but something I've just really been thinking about really. Observing is I, I feel like we are at, at the point in, in, within, just like the rules of the game, where we need, we need official des, we need an official, officially designated position for like, ability used. Because I was, you know, watching the, the only, the only, the only game of I caught on stream was the finals. But anyways, even, even just in the finals, like, uh, you full tap, like full horizontal, like tapping a land in magic when he, when he was activating his genocide, I'm like, the table judges were fine with that. And that's just like, that's so confusing. Like I feel like we just, we need a rule or something that we've, it's just interesting to see how the game has come. Like everyone has the t CG evolution sort of markers and things like that. Whereas like, I dunno, back in the day, you like played all once and that was kind of it. Or like, the abilities were more limited too. Like Gardevoir, telepath, like you could only use once and things like that. But it just kind of feels strange and jarring to see all these just like turned cards. Like I, I like the counters. The counters work fine, but like, It's not, obviously not in the rules and gets into sort of confusion when you're doing it in the active position where of course, you know, that's signifying status conditions and things like that. But I feel like we're at where we've got to the point where we need something. It just, I, I was just very taken aback by seeing a, a fully a, a tapped land gensec on the board and just like everyone being like, yep, that's normal. That's how the game is played. This is what it looks like. I don't know if, maybe this just doesn't make sense, but it felt weird to

Liam:

me.

Brent:

I mean, my, my

Kaden:

vote is, I think they should have either, uh, a sleep or paralyzed be transferred to a, a marker like burn burner poison. Yeah. And then just have a designated side. You flip your cards for ability used. That's how I would do it if they wanted to make it like, sort of concrete way of rotating

Brent:

cards because I feel like you need

Brit:

something because it's, it's too hard to maintain the game state. And if we're, if we're having to go third party, you know, with these, with these counters and things like that, Um, it's just like, it's just,

Liam:

just

Brit:

fill in a rule. Yeah. And your, your solution, I think would work perfectly for sure. Especially too, cause like, I, I only, the only one I consistently remember is confusion. I, I can never sort of quite remember which is which. If you held a gun to my head and told me, like, tell me which one, which one is paralysis right now, it's like, I might be dead. Like, I, I, I don't remember off the top of my head.

Brent:

There's a rule, the, you know, the rule. What's the rule? I

Liam:

think it's alphabetical. The one I always remember is if you write the alphabet out from like left, right, top to bottom, A is on the left side and P'S on the right side. So sleep and then paralyzed. Yeah. Okay. Everybody writes it the same way for some reason, but you know, like, wait asleep

Kaden:

is left.

Liam:

Yeah, I thought it

Mike:

was wrong.

Kaden:

Oh, I've been doing that wrong every

Mike:

time. That's what I mean. Five years. Maybe

Brent:

this is a mystery. Maybe his, maybe it's actually exactly that, but it's not us sleep. It's sleep and s comes after pee. Who knows? It could be

Liam:

anything.

Brent:

I, uh, I actually really like that idea. Uh, as you guys know, I basically only play PTCG l at this point, but I'm like a PTCG l grinder. It's the craziest thing I would never have, uh, thought that I would be this person. And two conclusions that I've come to is one, I. I think to your point, if they had ability markers, it would make that game so much clearer. Like the whole, like, it's glowing if you can do something that's like, that's a, it's a cue that exists outside of the game. B, it could be confusing for players. Cause like sometimes people play path and then your things aren't glowing and you're like, you're like, why are they not glowing? And like, I mean that, you know, like at some level you could say you have to really be a total noop to have that happen. But like, it's also like, it's weird that they don't give you these contextual cues, right? If, if you play a switch and you're playing Lost Box and you have like a comfy on the bench that you've already used, the ability, once you play the switch, you can't see which comfy has used its ability, which comfy hasn't. That's like,

Liam:

uh, uh, uh,

Brent:

I mean maybe that's weird. Maybe it's not, I

Liam:

don't know. But like, seems to me like a design. I, I lost a game to that the other day. Um, right.

Mike:

I like you. Can you, well you can see it on, on PTCG Live. You guys don't know how. How, like the

Liam:

red ability, like glow or like, like it's like red when you pull it up, right? Is that what you're referencing? So if you

Mike:

have used the ability, there's a red down arrow that appears and if you have not used the ability there,

Liam:

is that still

Brent:

showing when you play the switch card? Maybe I, maybe it isn't. I just haven't noticed.

Mike:

I'll have to, I believe so. I mean, it could be, it could be inconsistent. I am not, uh, I would not be surprised at all. The thing that is definitely inconsistent is like sometimes a card will glow if you can use its ability and sometimes it does not. And even the same card like radiant Greninja, like sometimes it's glowing and sometimes it's not. But I do think that the arrow from what I remember is consistent in when you have already used it. But I have still made that mistake. Yeah. Yeah.

Liam:

Uh, um.

Brent:

And I've also really come to the conclusion that the PTCG l people should abandon the attempt to make playing the game, like

Liam:

playing the physical card

Brent:

game. And they need to like, make every shortcut to make playing games faster. It just takes too long. It's not like midco enough if they want to grow, like the number of people playing the, the card game with PTCG l you gotta make playing games

Liam:

faster.

Mike:

Yeah,

Liam:

I agree. Like, you

Brent:

know, all, all the, like flipping a coin and all that stuff, you just get rid of it all. Say go first, go, we're done. I mean, you literally cut like a minute off of the gameplay

Liam:

if you were just like, you're going first go. Yeah,

Mike:

that's true. I mean that's, that's a good point. Like there's not, there's almost no downside to doing that.

Liam:

Yeah. There's some deck, like there's some matchups I will say where like, um, both players are happy going first or going second, especially going in blind,

Mike:

like put the option in for friend games. Right. But not ladder games. Just something like that. Well,

Liam:

like, or

Brent:

you can just skip the flipping a coin and let someone pick the, the,

Mike:

the point. Oh, yeah, yeah, there you go. That would work too.

Liam:

Yeah, yeah. Right. That, that would work. Right, right. But yeah, like if you're, if you're lost versus Lugia and like, I mean, I

Mike:

lost but on ladder you don't know on the ladder.

Liam:

You just plan on the ladder. No, but like if, if lost is like, oh, I want to go second or something. Right. And Lugia is like, I wanna go first then when the game just like, yeah.

Brent:

So, so I'll just get rid of flipping the coin and let you know, let one of them pick.

Liam:

Yeah. That would work. Right? I mean,

Brent:

I, I shaved, I shaved like 30 seconds off the thing, like, who has to call it? And then you have to watch it flip. It's insane. It's completely insane. Every time a little piece of me dies. Alright guys, we've been going for a while. Let's, uh, uh, let's declare victory. When we come back next week, we'll find out how many decks Liam has gone through in his attempt to find

Liam:

a decks play for Milwaukee,

Brent:

and whether or not Mike's ready to just throw in the towel and go to Milwaukee. Top 16. That's all it

Liam:

takes. So easy. Ryan, do

Brent:

you get

Brit:

a cheap flight to Chicago? Someone will drive you. There's probably some affordable options on the

Mike:

table. I mean, it's not even like that EX, it's not that expensive. Even just to fly to Milwaukee. But I'm supposed to be running my cup that weekend as well, so I'd have to move that. That seems like a hassle.

Liam:

Oh my God, I

Brent:

totally forgot. You. You have your league challenge on

Mike:

Wednesday. I'm running a league challenge on Wednesday.

Brent:

People, Philadelphia League challenge on

Mike:

Wednesday. Yeah. Actually no, don't, don't come. I don't need that many people in my first one.

Brent:

No, no. Uh, Liam and I were thinking about coming. That is that, uh, that is definitely nothing to do. People. How, how many RSVPs are you up to

Liam:

now? Like,

Mike:

three, but I think I'll have, uh, I'll probably have about 10 people would be my

Liam:

guess. Alright. Make it 12. Make it

Brent:

12. Make it 11. I'll, I'll help you, uh, run it. I won't, I won't let compete. That'd

Liam:

be it. Um,

Brent:

anything else going on guys? No,

Mike:

not

Brent:

really. Mike. Congratulations. That's a, that's a nice run. Yeah, it was solid. Super solid. Super

Liam:

solid. We top 64, we take those?

Brent:

Yep. 1300 people, something like

Mike:

that. 1100,

Brent:

but yeah. Yeah. Alright. Good Times League challenge on, so, so next week we'll find out how Running League

Mike:

challenge goes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm, I'm excited to talk about that. Yeah,

Brent:

that's gonna be, that's gonna be awesome. That's gonna be awesome. Alright. See you guys. Uh, that's

Liam:

it guys.